Passage Of School Board Budget Not A Guarantee

(Memphis) Superintendent Dorsey Hopson and department heads came up with the billion dollar budget for unified schools.

Now the ball is in the board of education`s court.

Thursday night, they will vote to approve or reject the budget.

First they are clarifying what’s inside it and how the district came up with this plan.

“If the budget doesn’t pass that means the priority of the board are not recognized in the budget. But that is very doubtful,” said school board member Kevin Woods.

Woods and other board members met with the district about the budget Wednesday.

He says he thinks the budget will pass, but first they have to clear up what’s inside it, “Today we’re going to ask more about Pre K. Where we can find those resources and clear up some academic objectives and see what we need to do to keep moving the needle forward.”

The budget does not provide money to cover Pre K cuts, and dozens of classes will be gone next year.

School board member Betty Mallott says the budget will probably pass because at this point they don`t have many choices, “We don’t have very many options now. There just aren’t many places left to cut except starting to cut teachers.”

Mallott says if the budget doesn’t pass she expects the superintendent will go back to the drawing board this weekend and call a special meeting for a re-vote Monday.

Mallott says she and other board members would like to put more money into the budget to build that world-class system, but at this point they know the county simply doesn’t have the money this budget is them meeting the commission half way.